8.5 Months, and Still Getting Better

I am careful in my blogging because, while our blog was started over 6 1/2 years ago with mainly grandparents in mind as audience, Wynn is an avid blog reader, through google translate, and I do not want to say things that will embarrass or make her uncomfortable as I share my version of her story.  I do want to preserve memories, though, and I do want her to know how proud of her we are, how much we love her, and how amazing we think she is.  At the time of this writing, we have known Wynn for 8 months.  For 8 months, she has amazed us over and over with how remarkable she is.  We have come through scared/resentful/avoidant/resistant, through shy/careful/tentative/curious, through feeling-out-belonging/experimenting-with-affection, to a new stage that is starting to feel like trust.  Our happy moments have been far greater than our sad or challenging moments (at least from my perspective).

I feel like there's been a change in what she's able to offer and accept that is more trusting.  For example, she came and told me, very appropriately, that she was angry that a sibling had gone in her room looking for a missing iPod.  She felt angry that she perceived herself accused of having someone else's stuff (though that was not the thought of the iPod owner), and she felt, rightly, that her space had been violated and her personal stuff searched.  I was present during the search, and the things that were viewed by this sibling were not things that I would consider "private," (e.g. no journals, pictures, notes, memorabilia), but it crossed Wynn's boundaries.  I love that she was able to tell me - both that she had the language to say, "I don't like it," and the trust that she could tell me so.  And as I said, I was present during this search and condoned it, so it is really my fault, and I apologized to her.

She is more trusting in what she shares about her past (and has growing language skills that help her say more).  She has told stories about how the school routine went, how rice is harvested, how the orphanage supervised the foster homes, but these are event stories, not very personal.  Lately, she's been telling a little more personal details.  Recently, she took me to my room to show a picture on my wall for context to her story.  This is a picture she drew that was in her adoption referral file.  I printed it and hung it up on my bedroom with drawings from all the other children.  This picture is dated 10/15/08.  She told me that she drew that picture when they told her she could be adopted and go to America.  Then, she waited, and waited, and waited.  Her China Mom told her maybe Americans didn't think she was pretty enough, and they didn't think she'd be adopted.  I have heard part of that story before, but to hear her voice say, "Then waited and waited" brings tears to my eyes, even now, again.  We went up and reviewed her blog then, so I could show her about when I had written about finding her picture and wanting her.  I showed her that we saw her picture for the first time on March 14, 2011, and how they told us we had to do all of our paperwork really fast, or we wouldn't get to bring her home, how we hurried as fast as we could because we wanted her in our family, and how we got on a plane 6 months later (9/14/11) to go meet her.  I don't know what happened between 10/08 and 3/11 that left her waiting so long, and I wish I could have prevented her from feeling anxious or unwanted . . . but if it hadn't happened this way, maybe she wouldn't be a Norton.  Selfishly, I'm glad she waited for us.

While looking at the early part of this blog on that occasion, she asked, "What is this?" for the post with her finding location.  It was clear that she had no concept of "finding location" or "where you were found."  (How much language limitations and how much new concepts?)  I said it was where they took her when her birth mom could not care for her and left her where she could be found and given the care she needed.  (She was not abandoned as a newborn.)  It was very clear that birth mom was not something she understood, so I explained this was the person who had been pregnant with her, like Auntie is pregnant, but then couldn't take care of her, maybe because she had been sick.  I was desperately searching for words that are as true as I can make them but also as positive as I can make them.  (I know we can't know the actual circumstances of how she came to be in the CWI, but I have a strong hypothesis that since she was approximately 6 months old when found, that she spent the first 6 months with someone who wanted her but was perhaps faced with the prospect of expensive medical treatments and had to look at other alternatives.)  She was very quiet and thoughtful, and I don't have any idea if I handled this the right way.

Yesterday, she said she wondered if her mom came, not her American Mom or her Chinese Mom, but (indicated with hands over stomach a growing pregnancy) this mom, would she go with her or stay with us.  Or maybe she would spend a year with us, a year with her China Mom, and a year with her other mom.  Ah, the enduring fantasy/curiosity/loyalty to a birth mom she doesn't know and is unlikely to.  I wish I could fix this for her, too.  I wonder if she would like this book.

She didn't dwell on it.  A minute later, she was telling me she liked shopping with Dad.  I asked, "Dad?  Or China Dad?"  China Dad, because if she was good, he would buy her something special that was not tài guì le (too expensive) and if she bù tīng huà (didn't listen to his words/disobeyed), she got nothing. Just like Dad! He also buys her something that is not tài guì le. I related that story to Michael, and he laughed and said what doesn't he buy her? She holds the item she wants up by her face and sparkles her dimples at him, and he sighs, "Put it in." Luckily, so far, she just wants things like a bottled frappucino or a bag of chips! I told her she had Dads figured out.  (But I have little room to talk.  I made a special trip to Wendy's yesterday because she asked so sweetly for a "spicy chicken hamburger," and I HAD forgotten to bring her lunch to her English lesson.)

I did love it very much the other night when she ran ahead, teasing her dad and beating him into his spot in the bed, cuddled up to my back, and said, "I want Mom!"  Yep.  Love it.